Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works

by Anne Savage

Book Overview

English-speaking Christians owe Paulist Press an enormous debt of gratitude for their continuing efforts to help us gain a deeper appreciation of our spiritual heritage. Spiritual Life In one series, the original writings of the universally acknowledged teachers of the Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and Islamic traditions have been critically selected, translated and introduced by internationally recognized scholars and spiritual leaders...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809132575
• ISBN13: 9780809132577
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Paulist Press
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Resource for Lay Readership

This version of an often translated and annotated text contains a great deal of material for those to whom medieval spiritual literature is either a leisure pastime or a new intellectual indulgence. The prose -- even in modern translation -- is lovely and meticulous. The construction of this spiritual ediface is often breathtaking, even for those who don't share in the author's transcendent vision of temptation and redemption. Written around 1230 in the West Midlands of England for a group of three anchoritic sisters -- women who were walled up along the outside of a church for the sake of contemplation and a closer spiritual life with Christ -- this text contains not only the Ancrene Wisse, but those shorter and often overlooked documents that accompanied the Wisse in several of its incarnations. The editors of this version were meticulous in summarizing the most recent scholarship on the origins of this text -- they agree with Dobson that the anonymous author was likely not a Dominican but an Augustinian Canon -- and concisely summarize each piece for readers who might otherwise have difficulty reading the prose. Not for those more advanced researchers in Middle English scholarship, but otherwise a wonderfully readable and comprehensible text for those seeking material on medieval women's spirituality.